Monday July 1, the price of gas will increase by 12%, or on average 124 euros more on a household’s annual bill. To explain this increase, “there are two elements that come into play“, explains Patrice Geoffron, director of the center for geopolitics of energy and raw materials. The first of these elements is importation, which concerns 95% of the gas used in France, he says. “At our suppliers, this price varies, there, it has rather increased“The other important component according to him is”that we need to invest in networks, to modernize them, so that explains about half of the increase“.
In fact, the share of gas that is not imported “is produced from waste, particularly agricultural waste, this is methanization. They are scattered across the territory. We aim to produce more and more: the order of magnitude is that in 2030 we could produce 15 to 20% of this gas.“.
Price increases not uniform for everyone
On the other hand, if we rely on the gas prices which were in effect last January and not in April, we should see a drop. “Moreover, it will not have escaped anyone’s notice that for gas users, the main period for using gas is rather winter.“, explains Patrice Geoffron. “This price as proposed by the energy regulatory authority is a so-called reference price. But depending on our suppliers and how we negotiate with them, deciding to change supplier, we can have a lower or higher price“, he says to explain that the increase will not be applied uniformly to all subscribers.
“The reality is that we are an old country, which has burned almost all the oil and gas that it was possible to extract from its subsoil and over which we had more or less control. hand“, according to Patrice Geoffron, for whom “we are quite dependent on these fluctuations“, for example those of the barrel of oil which fluctuated between 20 and 130 dollars per barrel,”this largely explains the fluctuations we had at the pump“The conflict in Russia also explains the changes in the price of oil.
“Apart from pulling our hair out at the pump there is not much to do, except reduce our consumption.“At the individual level, advocates Patrice Geoffron. But can’t governments act on prices?”Yes, because there is a part that relates to taxes and over which a government has control, provided that it is the most coherent way of using public resources.“. But for him, the most important question is: “Do we want to remain dependent on this or do we want to make investments, for example to produce more gas close to home from waste which is otherwise a decarbonized gas?“
